Game On 02/90

Cover
In a post-apocalyptic world, Manbat will rule over the ashes of civilization. He probably won't be able to enjoy his reign for long, unless he's developed a special diet consisting of rubble, molten steel, and fire.
Despite his savage looks, he was decent enough to put on a loincloth. It looks like it's made up of leaves, though, which aren't that well-known for being fire resistant.

The image is obviously trying to depict the fourth game mentioned on the cover, which is simply named Bat. The thing is, Bat is nothing else but a Pong clone, and a particularly boring one at that. It is so crazily misrepresented that I get the impression the artist didn't know anything about the game except for the name. Either that, or it's just really hard to paint an interesting picture for a game that consists of nothing else than a ball and two paddles.


Cover Lines
Knowing the actual quality of the games advertised here, I have to say that a lot of the cover lines are bordering on lies. One of them is a lie, actually.

• MegaParatrooper! gets called an action-packed shoot 'em up. In reality, the shooting part is only a small fraction of the game, and it consists entirely of holding down the joystick's fire button and doing nothing else.
• There is no attempt made at praising Krypton's gameplay, instead its graphics and sound capabilities are highlighted. Neither of them are especially great, but fair enough.
• Flash is described as a game for joystick acrobats. I can't tell you if this statement is accurate, though, because the game isn't on the bloody disk! I wonder if this counts as false advertising and if some buyers of this issue tried to take legal steps.
• Bat, however, is on the disk, and I wish it wasn't. It's Pong, and nothing else. It doesn't even have sound! No offense to the game's author, but this should've stayed a programming exercise. What's worse, it's called a "fantastic game for Game On fans", which is hyperbole at an insulting level.

Magazine

This issue's intro picture is well done and certainly better than the one in the previous Game On. I'm not sure what exactly it is trying to depict. I guess it's a guy standing on a bridge, and we're looking at him through a gap between two rocks. I keep on seeing the rocks as legs, even though that would imply that the leg on the right has two knees.

Another new image is featured in the Top Ten section which lists the editorial staff's most popular C64 games of the month. Those shiny trophies look very much like Competition Pro joysticks.

The Help section also contains some pixel art, and I accidentally skipped it when I looked at the previous Game On issue. So here it is in its full glory. If you get so frustrated with a game that you want to take a bite out of its data storage medium, I recommend having a chocolate disk replica nearby to use as a delicious substitute.


Articles

• The introduction article mentions how Commodore's failure to remain relevant in the US of A lies in stark contrast to the success it's still celebrating in Europe, especially in Germany. The company only survived for four more years before it finally croaked.
• The reader mail section is weirder than usual in that it contains a dating advert from a guy who was intent on finding a girl via this diskmag. It is unknown if his efforts were fruitful.
• The Help section is meant to give useful hints for games, but the article for Rick Dangerous is remarkably vague and doesn't go beyond "be careful" and "don't die".

"Notable" Games
MegaParatrooper!
Krypton


Summary
From my perspective, Game On 02/90 has to go down as one of the worst issues ever released by CP Verlag. Content-wise, I can't shake the feeling that something went utterly wrong during the making of this magazine: MegaParatrooper! is a frustrating mess that culminates in a file error, Krypton had already been published previously in the very first Game On in 1988, and Bat isn't worth the time it takes loading it up. If that wasn't enough, there is also Flash, a game which is advertised on the cover but nowhere to be found on the disk.

Funnily enough, I still remember when and where I got this particular issue. I bought it at a kiosk inside a shopping mall (which has been torn down and rebuilt in the meantime). I remember admiring the fiery cover while waiting for my parents to return from grocery shopping. I wondered what the games would look like and how they'd play. However, I hardly remember my initial reactions when I got to play the games. Maybe I repressed the painful memories which is probably for the best.